My night spent on the hilltop bluff was cold, but not as cold as the previous evening. I had slept well under the largest full moon of the year, waking to the muffled call of the distant barred owl and the nearby scurrying of the crazy red squirrels. I finished reading the second article in my Boundary Waters magazine and caught up in my daily journal before exiting the tent.
Once I had surveyed the area I started preparing for breakfast by collecting firewood and lowering my food bag from a large, second growth white pine. I cut up a potato, brat, and cheese; cooking those ingredients with 2 eggs that had survived yesterday’s portages. It was a hearty skillet to kick off my third day in the Big Island Lake Wilderness. I washed it down with a cup of hot chocolate. (Click here to go back & read Part#2)
By the time I was finished, and had tidied up my gear around the camp, it was early afternoon and time to get on the water. The sun was shining and I could feel the air beginning to warm; it was a welcome change from the past couple of days. I wondered if it was under similar circumstances that David wrote about the skies declaring the glory of God when he wrote, “In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun.” (Psalms 19:4b NIV) I was looking forward to fishing, exploring, and hanging out around camp! For the first time on this trip, and probably for a good chunk of my life, nothing was specifically planned or set in stone. Dennis Weidemann, in his book entitled, This Water Goes North had stated, “Journeys with too much purpose are like rigidly planned vacations, fraught with schedules and tension. Eyes that are so narrowly focused can’t see all that each place has to give, nor is there a chance to happen upon an unknown gem and spend a day admiring it. Purpose isn’t fun. That’s work!” (20-21)
Now, some would argue that paddling, portaging, and wilderness camping is itself a lot of work - and while I would wholeheartedly agree, it’s the kind of labor I personally find freeing. Even so, whatever I was going to do, I wanted to get started! Where was the day’s time going?
I posed for a couple of pictures at the base of the lake and in front of the steps leading up to my campsite. Using the timer on my phone’s camera I wanted to capture the fact that I was christening the hat gifted to me this past spring from the staff at the Upham Woods Outdoor Learning Center. The design was much like the evergreen tree and shoreline of a waterway that I use as my signature mark. It was that logo that I had drawn out on the wide blade of my paddle using a permanent marker. The paddle also had been given by Upham Woods on my last trip to the camp, and prior to my retirement. In the picture I wore a specific, pre chosen T-shirt. Although it was a little cool to wear on its own in the shade, it was poignant because the design captured the dream and rhythm of the northwoods that I’ve felt my entire life. I have a ton of T-shirts that embody the spirit of the outdoors. From that collection I chose 3 to bring on the trip; plus one with a change of clothes that I’d left in the Jeep and planned to wear home once I’d paddled out the following day.
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| FROM THIS COLLECTION OF T-SHIRTS, CAN YOU GUESS THE 3 I BROUGHT ON THE TRIP? |
I launched my canoe and headed out to fish; gentle ripples pushed me along in the southeast end of the lake. As it happened, I hooked into absolutely nothing, which was a little tough to stomach when I generally see myself as an above average fisherman. Vanity aside, I gave it my all and fished for a good hour, before turning my attention to the portage at the end of the lake. I would be heading out the following day, and the call to continue exploring was tugging at my heartstrings. I pulled the canoe well up onto the shoreline and left all of my fishing gear within it. I took one last look out over McInnes Lake that I was camped on and began hiking up the hill towards Klondike Lake.
Walking the ridge was indeed a sensory overload. I found myself relaxing, and feeling completely content, while remembering the vivid colors of the woods and hills where I had grown up in Otsego County, Michigan. People used to pull off to the side of our road and take pictures of our setting. The house and farmyard were a couple hundred yards away and sandwiched between the light green of the front field and the vibrant red, orange, and yellow fall colors splashed across the back hills; framed by the band of dark evergreen red pines. I smiled to myself while thinking of having lived in a location that others saw and tried to capture as “picture perfect.”
I felt similar walking the half mile to Klondike. It was an absolutely beautiful hike, and one I was elated to walk without any cumbersome equipment. The breeze revealed its presence by rattling the leaves; the leaves of so many various hardwoods. The sun through the multicolored canopy was like looking into a cathedral with floor to ceiling stained-glass windows. The air felt dry; the skin of my hands tight from having had them in the water while fishing and paddling. The taste and smell along the portage trail could best be summed up by Sam Cook. When he wrote about the autumn season in his book Up North he said, “In fall it’s a boggy, dusky smell - full bodied and rooty.” (153)
The path weaved along upon the ridge like a slithering snake on the surface of still water. As I walked, I took note of the wrist thick dead maple that would make great firewood for the evening. Soon the marshy north end of Klondike Lake came into view; Mother Nature’s tease before open water and the trail’s descent through golden light.
CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF
WALKING THE PORTAGE TRAIL:
"THROUGH THE GOLD & DOWN TO KLONDIKE"
Klondike reflected the clear blue skies and the yellowish-orange leafed birch lining the shore. Far to the south I saw what I presumed to be the lake’s lone campsite; an excellent prospect for a future trip. I could see the sandy lake bottom in front of me which didn’t appear to plummet into the depths as quickly as in McInnes where I was camped. Perhaps in a warmer season I’d be able to peel down, dive in, and swim around.
On my return walk I took a few pictures, and then went about the business of collecting the dead, and dried maple. It would burn long and consistently, creating good coals for cooking. Once back to “my” lake, I loaded the firewood into the bow of the canoe and shoved off into the lake. After casting along the western shore and then drifting several times across the north end, I decided to switch gears. The wind was picking up and I wanted to start dinner at an earlier time that evening. The day’s hiking and paddling had made me hungry! And what a beautiful place to continue honing the skills needed for such endeavors. In A Sand County Almanac Aldo Leopold, our beloved pioneer in conservation wrote, "Wilderness areas are first of all a series of sanctuaries for the primitive arts of wilderness travel, especially canoeing and packing.” (193) As I climbed back up the steep incline to camp, I found myself thankful that we still can find sanctuaries where we can escape and ruminate.
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| A BEAUTIFUL SETTING FOR A PIT TOILET : ) |
I began my afternoon camp chores cutting up the long maple poles. It’s something I do wearing leather gloves. At this point I’ve lived long enough to have had several near misses; almost losing a finger or two. Once as a teenager I had the saw I was using become bound before bouncing from its cut and taking chunks out of my flesh. On another occasion following an early morning storm in Rockford, Illinois on July 5, 2003 , winds in excess of 80 miles an hour threw trees like matchsticks. Since the power was out, I decided to collect some branches of ash, hickory, and oak from the massive downed trees at nearby Sinnissippi Park to use for various projects. While using a folding hand saw, the blade popped out of the track that I had started and raked across my brace hand; tearing and shredding muscles and nerves to the bone. I returned home looking ghostly pale and gripping my left index finger; blood oozing between the digits. I believe it was after receiving multiple stitches from that experience that I decided I’d better use leather gloves when sawing!
My meal that evening consisted of Bush’s original baked beans, acorn squash (filled with my own homemade maple syrup), and fried voyager bannock (topped off with strawberry jam). The bannock seemed appropriate and traditional within the realm of canoe country. This region certainly was caught up in the fervor of trapping and trading animal hides for goods by the voyagers of old. Writing in The Lonely Land, the famed Northwoods author Sigurd Olson wrote, “That afternoon I made another bannock. Taking a cupful of prepared biscuit mix, I added just enough water so I could knead it into a fairly dry ball of dough. The kneading is important, for without it the bread might be too porous. Finally patting the ball into a flat cake, possibly not much more than half an inch in thickness, I pressed it into a well-greased frying pan, browned it gently on each side, then placed it beside the fire where it would catch the heat and bake slowly for half an hour. It is the traditional bread of the North, and Indians and men of the bush vie with each other in method and ingredients, and guard their recipes jealously. Some say that one must start with flour and salt and that prepared mixes are no good, others say that reflector ovens or Dutch ovens are the answer, but most men I know stick to the old traditional use of the frying pan… Flattened out and fried in a pan, it is food for men. Store bread is for city folks, say old timers, bannock for the bush.” (76)
Once everything was baked, heated, and cooked I simply sat. It’s sometimes a difficult task to “untask” and do nothing; even if just for a brief spell. With the sun setting and my immediate world aglow, it demanded passive attention. And so I obliged; sitting on the needle covered moss and looking out over McInnes Lake while eating my meal. As Sam Cook mentioned in Friendship Fires, “What you remember again is that after three or four days out there, you begin to feel about as good as you ever feel. Life has been reduced to these essentials - eating, sleeping, hunting [or fishing, paddling, hiking]. You finally begin to slow down. You have rekindled the old skills of watching and listening. You have become as much a part of the forest as a human is ever allowed to become.” (104-105)
Before settling in for the evening I packed away some of my gear, went down lakeside to clean off a few of my dishes, and made sure my canoe was secure. While there, I was fortunate to capture the remaining rays of sunshine smeared across the trees on the opposite side of the lake.
As I crawled into my tent, the moon again regained its prominence over the night sky like a beacon for the ages. Yes it reflected the sun, now well over the horizon and making its way to others on the flip-side of the Earth thanks to our rotation, but you’d never know it. Our celestial and lunar nightlight, especially when full, takes center stage and acts as if it’s generating its own radiance. It spent the evening casting its own moon shadows! I, on the other hand, spent several hours reading Stu Osthoff’s editorial of his summer fishing expeditions to Quetico’s canoe country and the Sutton River near Canada’s Hudson Bay. It took some time, but I wanted to finish the article, and time was something I had. It was the third article in three days, and since it was warm enough (despite the wind), I sat up and read before drifting off to sleep.
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| MOON SHADOWS |
I woke early and, using my headlamp, packed up my bedding and tent. It was going to be a long day getting from McInnes Lake back to the Illinois-Wisconsin Stateline. I wanted to enjoy the process while knowing it was going to be a process. I made a quick fire, heating water to make oatmeal and hot chocolate. By now I was into day number two of using water I had gotten from the middle of the lake and filtered to make it consumable. Water along the shoreline had been too cloudy and murky due to the wind and waves.
That day, of all days, was calm; the last day in Big Island Lake Wilderness. As I carried my gear down to the water’s edge and packed my canoe, the scene before me was absolutely breathtaking. The shore across the lake was locked in a perfect reflection that allowed me to enjoy it twice as much, even on a day where I needed to move double time! The display called pleadingly for personal reflection if only for a moment. Sometimes the cadence of the North is silence in the form of observation. Sigurd Olson described this by saying, “Now were the days of color and of finding the places where it was best, for time does not wait in the north and a gale could change it swiftly overnight. Nothing more important now than reveling in shifting panorama, exploring scenes remembered vaguely from the past, surcharging minds and spirits with color and warmth against the coming white and cold. There were so many places to go, each one different, places that somehow had poetry of their own and, while part of the changing scene, stood out and said: ‘Enjoy me while you can’.” (Listening Point - 186-187) While that was my first time in the Big Island Lake Wilderness, I knew of places where I’d reveled in shifting panoramas, and enjoyed going back to those lofty pines or bends in the river as often as I could. I made a mental note to add this wilderness area to that list!
Before leaving I arranged my leftover firewood for the next camper; complete with birch bark to get it going. Someone had done the same for me and I meant to reciprocate that. My cousins and I tend to do that on our annual camping trip each summer. I like how Robin Wall Kimmerer explained this act when she stated, “My mother had her own more pragmatic ritual of respect: the translation of reverence and intention into action. Before we paddled away from any camping place she made us kids scour the place to be sure that it was spotless. No burnt matchstick, no scrap of paper escaped her notice. “Leave this place better than you found it,” she admonished. And so we did. We also had to leave wood for the next person’s fire, with tinder and kindling carefully sheltered from the rain by a sheet of birch bark. I liked to imagine their pleasure, those paddlers, arriving after dark to find a ready pile of fuel to warm their evening meal. My mother’s ceremony connected us to them, too.” (Braiding Sweetgrass - 35)
Well said Dr. Kimmerer!
My paddle to the north end of McInnes was wonderfully uneventful in the growing sunlight and I tried to relish the opportunity to rustle the dry leaves with my boots while hiking the portage trail to Coattail Lake. Following my double portage, the lake came out of shadow as the sun cleared the tree line. I needed to keep pushing, but I couldn’t fathom leaving without catching a fish, and that lake looked perfect for such an event. In fact, while standing there deliberating, I actually saw some surfacing. I assembled my pole, grabbed my favorite #5 Mepps, and loaded my canoe; easing it gently into the water to prevent obtrusive ripples.
At the entrance to the ensuing shallow bay, I caught a northern pike. Whew! That had felt good and I took a deep breath. I caught a second of almost the same size a few minutes later - off an opposite point of land. In a perfect world I would have fished that lake all day long, but as it was, I paddled over to check out what the lake’s campsite looked like before making my way over to the portage. The haul up and over the ridge into Mid Lake wasn’t long, but it was steep! As Jerry Dennis expressed within the pages of From A Wooden Canoe, “Portaging awakens us to the hard old ways of doing things. Every jolting step, every arrow of pain, every aching muscle reminds us that we’re not far removed from life as it was lived centuries ago. Carrying our equipment from one waterway to another makes us stronger and more independent. Every portage takes us another step away from the frenetic and mind-numbing world of commuter airlines and cellular phones. We don’t want it to be easy. A PORTAGE HERE sign is an announcement that we’ve gotten soft, that there are too many of us, that the great American wilderness has been packaged forever. Who wants to be reminded of that?” (28-29)
As I paddled Mid Lake, I passed an immature loon; on its own now to fly south. I had hoped to catch sight or sound of any of the U.P.'s big three of black bear, moose, or wolves, but I was at least graced with the occasional glimpse of wildlife. When I cruised past the lake’s lone campsite, the gentleman from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin that I had talked with on my way in - two days prior, was down cleaning some dishes at the lake. He and his wife were pulling up stakes and leaving too. As he stood, and I treaded water in the canoe, we talked. We swapped stories about our recent experiences for a spell and then he asked me about the site I had camped at - that he had suggested to me without actually having been there. I described it to him, and then he went on to tell me a story about a young man who had died at that site several years ago. The man from Fond du Lac had previously refrained from telling me those particulars for obvious reasons. He and his wife had been camped on Townline Lake that same weekend the man had died. In addition to the calamity, it apparently had been some of the worst weather they had ever camped in. I had of course stumbled upon a brief synopsis of that story when researching the area, but was not aware of any of the details. While the idea of camping on what apparently was this young man’s final resting place was obviously alarming, I was not, however, spooked by the information. It actually helped solidify what I had felt from the beginning; the fact that the campsite itself had felt sacred!
Once I returned home, I did a little more searching online and found a detailed article written by the Detroit Free Press on the man, his family, and the ordeal. I was pretty emotional while reading it over and found it difficult to control both my feelings and the thought of tragedy leaving behind a wife and small boy. I knew the water, the hills, and the trees he had looked up into with his final breaths. It was a vivid reminder, brought closer to home, to try to be as careful as possible when out solo camping while also making the most of our time here on Earth. Life has a billion facets, some of which are difficult or wonderful, but that can also be dangerous and shorter than what we often expect. With solemn thoughts while reading the online article, I silently offered distant condolences and deep sympathies. It’s not the kind of story I’ll ever forget, as there is somehow a common bond through a shared environment.
After talking from my canoe, still somber and thoughtful, I then portaged the short distance from Mid to Big Island Lake. Casting to the secretive muskies the lake held deep was tempting, but I forged ahead to the take out spot. I took a picture to commemorate the moment. I had fulfilled my dream of paddling and portaging into a wild area. And while the specifics on how that would play out had been unknown, I was a part of an adventure and a set of experiences that were different from anything I had been a part of prior to that. The goal had definitely been achieved! As Robin Wall Kimmerer also wrote, “I come here to listen, to nestle in the curve of the roots in a soft hollow of pine needles, to lean my bones against the column of white pine, to turn off the voice in my head until I can hear the voices outside it: the shhh of wind in needles, water trickling over rock, nuthatch tapping, chipmunks digging, beechnut falling, mosquito in my ear, and something more - something that is not me, for which we have no language, the wordless being of others in which we are never alone. After the drumbeat of my mother’s heart, this was my first language.” (48)
From the soothing sounds of a mother’s heart to the rhythmic pulse and intricacies of nature into which we are born, life reveals itself within a purpose greater than ourselves.
I carried the first load up the trail to my waiting Jeep. Three young men were in the trailhead parking lot; talking, excited, and about to hoist packs onto their backs. Together they were hiking into the woods to enjoy the area without canoes. It was an interesting concept that I hadn’t thought about, so I offered to take their picture for them to commemorate the moment. It was the kind of last minute photo that they’d be glad to have - long after they had forgotten who took the picture. It was also the kind of picture that would probably end up in a memoir someday as a black and white reflection of an ironic adventure between three friends.
By the time I carried up my canoe and began to lash it down, the couple from Fond du Lac arrived with some of their gear. We talked again as we packed, sharing a little bit about ourselves while showing some of the equipment we had used (they apparently used a reflector oven to bake deliciously interesting meals). I changed out of my camping clothes into some shorts and a T-shirt, as I was getting hot in the multiple layers I had been wearing.
With a look around I checked to make sure I had each of my dry bags of gear packed away and that the canoe was secure. I was a little sad to leave, because now I had tasted what it was like and looked forward to trying it again. At the same time, I couldn’t wait to get home to see my wife, and share all of the experiences with the rest of my family. Jumping into my old Silver Jeep, I headed out on what could only be described as a beautiful day - on winding dirt roads. It was also turning out to be the kind of day where a guide or resort manager would probably say, “You should have been here yesterday, it was perfect!”
En route to home I stopped twice; once for another Yooper pasty, to eat as I had on my way up North, and again for a quick break to fill the Jeep with gas. Once I had regained cell service, I sent a text to loved ones that I was okay, with a picture or two to whet their curiosity. Later, I called a few friends and family to give them a brief synopsis of my trip; it helped pass the time while driving. Traveling through one time zone change, I arrived home by 7:00. Enough time was left in the day to unpack a few things and settle in before heading to bed; dreaming of that rhythm of the Northwoods.
See you along The Way…
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“There is magic in the feel of a paddle and the movement of a canoe, a magic compounded by distance, adventure, solitude, and peace. The way of a canoe is the way of the wilderness and of a freedom almost forgotten. It is an antidote to insecurity, the open door to waterways of ages past and a way of life with profound and abiding satisfactions. When a man is part of his canoe, he is part of all that canoes have ever known.”
Sigurd Olson - p.#82-83, The Singing Wilderness
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